After reading the excerpt from Fried's The Passionate Teacher about the Game of School (GOS) , I start to reflect on what happened to daily classroom, teachers’ teaching and students’ learning, assessment and education reform.
First of all, I really impressed by Fried's viewpoint “…real excellence may be an embarrassment. The truly outstanding teacher is honored by being patronized…the outstanding student may also be ostracized by peers…” The real thing is we lack a system from which our best teachers and students can benefit and free of being mocked and pushed aside by their colleges and classmates. It results a severe consequence that, teachers will not take time to figure out how to meet each students’ need. The reason is simplicity and obvious. Teachers’ time is precious and limited and they would rather just obey what the administrators said. Unfortunately, every student has a unique demand which means they need an elaborate teaching plan.
Moreover, sometimes teachers may get opposite of what they want. As I referred, each student has his goal and demand. On one hand, students with special needs might need extra help and care in the class. While, what teachers concerned most is how to promote students scores in order to pass the entrance exams. Some teachers might consider those minority students hold others back and finally they are abandoned by teachers. On the other hand, other students’ unmet need is also ignored. Day by day, students are not encouraged to share their most innovative, controversial ideas, which results in a lack of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom. Fried reminds us that what teachers think is important for students to learn in order to be successful in study and life may not always be what our students will feel they need. I think it’s time to bring students interests into the classroom.
Finally, to change GOS teachers need to start from listening to their students and find out what is getting in the way of the kind of learning and then meet students’ unmet needs. Moreover, teachers need to take a step back and look at what they are doing - what they are teaching and ask themselves what do they want their students to achieve. All in all, the inspiring opinion of GOS really impressed me a lot.
After reading the excerpt from Fried's The Passionate Teacher about the Game of School (GOS) , I start to reflect on what happened to daily classroom, teachers’ teaching and students’ learning, assessment and education reform.
First of all, I really impressed by Fried's viewpoint “…real excellence may be an embarrassment. The truly outstanding teacher is honored by being patronized…the outstanding student may also be ostracized by peers…” The real thing is we lack a system from which our best teachers and students can benefit and free of being mocked and pushed aside by their colleges and classmates. It results a severe consequence that, teachers will not take time to figure out how to meet each students’ need. The reason is simplicity and obvious. Teachers’ time is precious and limited and they would rather just obey what the administrators said. Unfortunately, every student has a unique demand which means they need an elaborate teaching plan.
Moreover, sometimes teachers may get opposite of what they want. As I referred, each student has his goal and demand. On one hand, students with special needs might need extra help and care in the class. While, what teachers concerned most is how to promote students scores in order to pass the entrance exams. Some teachers might consider those minority students hold others back and finally they are abandoned by teachers. On the other hand, other students’ unmet need is also ignored. Day by day, students are not encouraged to share their most innovative, controversial ideas, which results in a lack of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom. Fried reminds us that what teachers think is important for students to learn in order to be successful in study and life may not always be what our students will feel they need. I think it’s time to bring students interests into the classroom.
Finally, to change GOS teachers need to start from listening to their students and find out what is getting in the way of the kind of learning and then meet students’ unmet needs. Moreover, teachers need to take a step back and look at what they are doing - what they are teaching and ask themselves what do they want their students to achieve. All in all, the inspiring opinion of GOS really impressed me a lot.